Photobook Interview with Michael Honegger on The Need to Know

Michael Honegger is a visual artist born in Germany with a B.A. in History & Spanish from Duke University, a M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Professional Certificate in Visual Arts from Maine Media College. His practice as a fine art and documentary photographer explores the performative nature of self-portraiture, the complexities of memory and family and an investigation of the ironies of American culture with an expatriate’s eye. He has exhibited his work in numerous juried group shows throughout the United State and Europe including the Center for Fine Art Photography, Photo Place Gallery, A.Smith Gallery, the Southeast Center for Photography and P.H. 21 Gallery among others. His documentary project on the refugee crisis on the island of Lesvos, Greece in 2015 was widely published in major European newspapers and by Amnesty International in their initial press release on the crisis. The Economist The Guardian, Newsweek and Lenscratch have also published his images. He currently resides in Nice, France and has lived in France for the past 14 years.

Michael Honegger’s father was a spy during the Cold War. Bilingual in German and English, he worked for the U.S. Air Force and sent agents into East Germany and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain.

The Honeggers lived in West Germany between 1959 and 1963 during the height of the Cold War. None of the family members had any idea about the father’s work life and all questions about it were answered with the same, predictable response, “Do you have the need to know?”, followed by a smile and silence. It was not until long after he retired that he finally shared a few details of his career as a counterintelligence special agent.

This project is an exploration of the meagre details that emerged from those brief conversations and Michael’s curiosity about Cold War espionage and its impact upon his family at the time. His father led two lives that rarely intersected. His family members were often the unwitting participants in indecipherable events that left them with many more questions than answers. Mysterious strangers would show up at their apartment late at night only to depart before dawn without saying a word to anyone other than his father. Peculiar encounters, curious radio transmissions, and unexplained coincidences became the norms of his childhood.